Florida Is Just One Big Ponzi Scheme

"Florida is lying awake at night like a terrified cardiac patient"

That, today from our friends up in Canada, or at least one of their veteran reporters currently residing in Washington DC. Neil Macdonald, fresh off a vacation to sunny Southwest Florida, returns to our nation's capitol brimming with cynicism and palpable disdain for the Sunshine State. "Swindled and beaten bloodier than most states by the economic crisis, Florida is lying awake at night like a terrified cardiac patient, praying the angina will pass. The confidence games here were ruinous. The housing fraud was industrial-scale. The economic shortsightedness bordered on lunacy." Macdonald soaks up the beauty of Florida first in Lehigh Acres ("Particularly striking is the newness of it all. Some of these homes — pastel orange, blue or green — have never been occupied, yet the windows are smashed, the appliances have been ripped out and the yards are a tangle of garbage-strewn brambles.") and then Cape Coral ("A vast, rambling place with no core and ghost towns on its edges.") where the inability today of local governments to even provide basic services (towing cars, picking up trash, etc.) leaves Macdonald suggesting a new slogan for Florida: The Ponzi State.